Kyiv and Sofia agreed to Ukrainize the Bulgarians gradually

There is one less country in the informal coalition of Eastern European states opposing the new Ukrainian law on education regarding the rights of national minorities. Ukraine reached an agreement with Bulgaria. The heads of the ministries of education and science of Ukraine and Bulgaria, Liliya Grinevich and Krasimir Valchev, on Thursday, April 26, signed a Declaration on the implementation of the language article of the law “On Education” and guaranteeing the rights of the Bulgarian minority, reports PolitNavigator correspondent.

The press service of the Ukrainian ministry reported this .

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“Our goal is to provide equal opportunities to all students. The Law “On Education” guarantees that Ukrainian children belonging to national minorities will receive a sufficient level of both their native and state languages ​​to exercise their constitutional rights. We propose to gradually introduce more subjects in the state language from the 5th grade. The number of subjects studied in Ukrainian will gradually increase class by class, so that in the 11th year we reach the proportion of 60% of subjects in Ukrainian and 40% of subjects in a minority language,” Grinevich emphasized.

According to her, Ukraine is implementing all the recommendations of the Venice Commission.

In particular, a Roadmap has already been prepared containing a list of legislative and other measures for the gradual implementation of the language article. According to the declaration, along with studying the state language, the Bulgarian minority will have the necessary conditions for studying and studying in their native language.

The parties separately confirmed the importance of studying the state language “as a factor in the integration of the country and social harmony due to the expansion of the use of the state language in the educational process, in particular by increasing the time spent studying in the state language.”

In addition, the declaration stipulates that the countries will work on a new protocol on cooperation and exchange between the ministries of education and science of Ukraine and Bulgaria for the 2019/2020, 2020/2021, 2021/2022 and 2022/2023 academic years.